Discover, Explore, Enrich and Share

Work hard : I once read a great interview of Steve Jobs in which he was trying to explain the common hallucination that "great ideas" are the only thing you need to produce great products and services. Here is his answer to the question : What's important to you in the development of a product?

One of the things that really hurt Apple was after I left, John Scully got a very serious disease.

And that disease – I've seen other people get it too – it's the disease of thinking that really great idea is 90% of the work.

And that if you just tell all these other people, you know, "Here's this great idea,' then of course they can go off and make it happen.

And the problem with that is that there is just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product.

And as you evolve that great idea, it changes and grows.

It never comes out like it starts, because you learn a lot more as you get into the subtleties of it and you also find there is tremendous trade-offs that you have to make.

I mean, there are just certain things you can't make electrons do. There are certain things you can't make plastics do or glass do or factories do or robots do.

And as you get into all these things, designing a product is keeping 5000 things in your brain – these concepts – and fitting them all together and kind of continuing to push to fit them together in new and different ways to get what you want.

And evert day you discover something new that is a new problem or a new opportunity to fit these things together a little differently.

And it's that process that is the magic.

I found his answer trully inspiring and I am pretty sure it can be useful for some of us.

I have been reading about Airtel Zero from couple of days. For readers, don’t know about Airtel Zero? It will be a platform powered Airtel, which will enable users’ free access to mobile apps (no data charges) whose presence are purchased by the companies. In simple words, companies will pay for its users to access the mobile apps.

Merits and Demerits

Airtel Zero will benefit marketers of big players like a Microsoft, Flipkart, Google, facebook, leading to weakening presence of small players/startups.

Thus, the internet space is flooded by the discussions on:

#NetNeutrality – free access of internet to every user

Airtel Zero will ruin the internet and budding app entrepreneurs

There is also a petition on change.org for #NetNeutrality.

However, I present a different view on this. Everytime, when disruption has happened in past, it has led to different ways of innovation. For instance- iPhone created big market for mobile accessories; Facebook connected more than billion people while making advertising patterns more mobile friendly. Mobile was one of the biggest disruptions of this century followed by tablets.

Internet is the most evolving specie of our time, its trend changes every 5 years. Why not open ourselves for the next big change: new set of thinking, new user trends?

No policy or player can stop innovative thinking; I see lot of opportunities like: a new app search algorithm, an app to switch between service providers, healthy competition between big brands, in-depth mobile analytics, more advertising streams, and change is user behavior.

Although, I support free internet for all yet I don’t deny that internet needs to evolve and is ready to accept the change.

As far as effect on small players is concerned, I personally don’t think it will have that major impact on VC backed startups only the marketing strategy will change.

Here is a list of some Top Indian Conspiracy Theories.1. Is India Still a Colony of the Queen of England?The theory goes something like this. By the Transfer of Power Agreement of 1947, India was declared an independent nation, but it implied that India would continue to serve as a Commonwealth Nation. So all Commonwealth nations, India included, are still a colony of the Queen. It is said that the Queen does not need a visa to visit her colonies, and thus, this theory gained popularity and created quite a furor when the Queen visited India in 1997 without a visa. Furthermore, the theory also says that our national anthem “Jana Gana Mana” was originally written in honor of the Queen as the song only features territories that were under the British India.

2. Lal Bahadur Shastri’s Death?A prominent Indian freedom fighter and the second Prime Minister of India, Shastri died in Tashkent, Russia, a day after signing the Tashkent Declaration, allegedly due to a heart attack. His untimely death led to conspiracy theories that he was poisoned. This theory gained momentum by the fact that no post-mortem took place to identify exact reason behind his death, either in Russia or by the Government of India. Furthermore, all his belongings came back to India except for his thermos flask from which he was said to have had his last drink of water. In 2009, an RTI was filed to declassify the documents related to Shastri’s death, but these were (rightly) dismissed because they would harm foreign relations and might also cause disruption of the country’s peace.

3. Homi Bhabha’s Death?Famously regarded as the father of Indian Nuclear Programmer, Dr. Homi Bhabha was India’s foremost Nuclear physicist who was killed in an air plane crash in 1966 near Mount Blanc, France. The conspiracy theory here suggests that the CIA was involved with the crash possibly to cripple India’s nuclear programmer, which suffered a massive blow and came to a temporary halt following his death.

4.Subhash Chandra Bose’s Death?The case of Subhash Chandra Bose is possibly one that has been widely discussed at least once by the average Indian person. The thing is, there are so many theories about him, that we actually had to narrow it down to the best three. So, let’s look at the official facts: Netaji Bose was flying to Tokyo when his plane crashed and he was badly burnt, eventually succumbing to his injuries. His body was cremated and laid to rest in a Buddhist temple in Taiwan. Now, the three theories, one progressively crazier than the next suggest that:1) He didn’t really die, but was alive in Taiwan and lived his life in the Temple itself.2) He was alive, but in Russia as a war criminal because of his close ties with Japan, where he died in a Russian jail some years later.3) That he lived incognito in India itself as Gumnami Baba. Gumnami Baba was said to have an eerie resemblance to Netaji Bose, and lived a long, full life before he passed away in late 1985.

5. The Tsunami Bomb?

The tests were carried out in waters around New Caledonia and Auckland during the Second World War and showed that the weapon was feasible and a series of 10 large offshore blasts could potentially create a 33-foot tsunami capable of inundating a small city.The top secret operation, code-named "Project Seal", tested the doomsday device as a possible rival to the nuclear bomb. About 3,700 bombs were exploded during the tests, first in New Caledonia and later at Whangaparaoa Peninsula, near Auckland.The plans came to light during research by a New Zealand author and film-maker, Ray Waru, who examined military files buried in the national archives."Presumably if the atomic bomb had not worked as well as it did, we might have been tsunami-ing people," said Mr Waru."It was absolutely astonishing. First that anyone would come up with the idea of developing a weapon of mass destruction based on a tsunami … and also that New Zealand seems to have successfully developed it to the degree that it might have worked." The project was launched in June 1944 after a US naval officer, E A Gibson, noticed that blasting operations to clear coral reefs around Pacific islands sometimes produced a large wave, raising the possibility of creating a "tsunami bomb".

I have had the chance to work with some amazing people in my college years. One such person – who I also consider to be my mentor – offered a very simple advice that has stayed with me for long.

He said:

Never give up on people. When you are assembling a team, make sure the process to enter is hard to ensure you quality. But once they are on your team, it is your responsibility to trust them to do good work.

People are always at their best. Nobody wants to wake up in the morning and do shitty work or work that has no meaning in their lives. If something's wrong with a person, if he/she is not performing, be empathetic and understand them. Understand what's the driving force behind why they do what they do. It will help you discover yourself and your tribe in the process.🙂

Truly, truly understanding that something is not meant for me. And I will not obtain it. And I need to improvise now, I need to figure out something else. I need to change my plans. Deep breath. Another one. Another one. Okay, I am going to change my plan now = This attitude.

Letting go.

Of all the material greeds and the clothes that you're never going to wear.Of the shallow attitude of being impressed by somebody's fancy watch than by their wit.Of waiting for them to like and awww your FB page.Of the hot wax drops on your heart when your friends choose someone else over you.Of the guy for whom you're not enough but you can't get enough of.Of judging everyone by the same scale. Actually, judging everyone.Of all the little hurts and angers that you still keep close to your heart. Of the walls you build up because someone hurt you in the pastOf being unkind to your colleagues because the office sucks. Of generally being unkind because you got it bad. As if they've got it good. Of giving too much of a shit to idiots around you.Of getting bothered by things that really don't matter in the long run.Of the small little grudges that are stacking up.Of keeping score.Of not being able to forgive the girl who cheated on you.Of not letting go of the people who moved on.Of blaming yourself that you never did enough for your parents. Of repenting over all the lost opportunities.Of trying to make someone love you.

We are well informed that you guys own a glorious city called ‘Gurgaon’. Keeping aside #icebucketchallenge which was to contribute to the fund of ALS, I want to challenge you both for #peakthourschallenge. This challenge will give insight on what we go through every day. All you need to do is to drive from Udyog Vihar via Cybercity till DLF phase 5 on any day (+ points if it is a rainy day) in morning between 9am to 10am and evening between 530pm to 630pm. Some exception to this challenge will be:

You can’t take highway

You have to drive without traffic police making way for you.

I and my friends are regularly going through the pain of driving within the city for 2 hours, time taken to reach to Gurgaon from Noida. Since, you own this city so it is your responsibility to take this challenge up and understand the pain that we go through.

I, also want to genuinely thank authorities making Metro, underpass for the city, for their umpteen knowledge of dissecting the complete city in one go. Ofcourse, I firmly believe processes and strategies are time consuming and planning is a pain in itself. Best way is to break the city from every corner and then build everything in one go.

I have a revenue suggestion, why don’t you tie-up with all the car-makers. Most of the cars are either digging the hole while making their way or are getting broke in the Watergate that opens on the rainy day, hence adding on the maintenance cost.

A special mention for DLF for building this millennium city on the highway. You have some brilliant minds working for you with no backup option. Take a bow!!